


The Center of Attention

by CaffieneKitty



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Community: watsons_woes, Corpses, Crime Scenes, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffieneKitty/pseuds/CaffieneKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The corpse was the least interesting object in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Center of Attention

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) July Writing Prompt #12: [A Baker's Half-Dozen](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1552218.html). Multi-image prompt. I couldn't decide which to go with, so I did them all.

The corpse was the least interesting object in the room. First off, there was the room itself; one of the old Maunsell Army forts standing in the estuary. Outside, someone had sunk a small yacht; it glowed a ghostly blue under the surface. They'd only found the body after another craft had struck the submerged vessel. Someone had now put out a floating orange hazard buoy to mark the sunken ship, and the bright flags of a police diving team marked out investigations happening under water.

Inside the fort, there was a man's body. Mid-forties, white, trim, death initially thought to be most likely from a close range gunshot wound to the head, but John's examination had quickly revealed the head injury to be a simple contusion and gash of blunt force. The amount of blood wasn't right, though. It was almost as if it had happened after the man died, but he couldn't be certain.

John found it difficult to concentrate on the corpse due to the intense feeling of being watched. Nine sets of beady sugar eyes stared from an assemblage of cupcakes made to look like dogs. Or rather a specific dog, the taxidermied one which was also sitting near the cupcakes, staring at John. So ten sets of eyes, really.

"Fascinating," Sherlock said, briefly peering at a fake ceramic frog smoking a pipe, set under the table the cupcakes ( _Pupcakes?_ ) were on, and attached to a plaque with an empty beaker. It was also looking slightly upward in the direction of the corpse, and therefore at John. Eleven pairs of eyes. _Hunh,_ thought John, beginning to see a pattern.

John looked around the small metal room. A painting of a dark-skinned man in a turban was affixed to the wall at a high angle, the muted colours of the oils blending in with the dark iron walls in the gloomy metal fort, and easily missed on first glance. The man's downcast eyes seemed to look down at the corpse with regret. _Twelve._ "That can't be a coincidence."

"What's that, John?" Lestrade said from the doorway, obviously tired of waiting for Sherlock to stop chortling and muttering to himself and say something useful.

"Hang on." John straightened up, settling back on his knees, and looked more intently around the room. In an angle of the wall was a small silver-framed black and white photo of a woman in fencing gear, saluting with an epee. Also looking toward the corpse. _Thirteen. Ah ha._

A heady glow of making a clever observation that Sherlock hadn't yet made swept through John. "Everything in this room is looking at him," John pointed to the corpse.

"My god. Is it?" Lestrade gaped, looking around the room.

"Of course it is." Sherlock scoffed, examining the pupcakes with his magnifier. "That's only too obvious."

John's pride deflated into irritation. "Oh. Well. You could have said so before and saved me the trouble of thinking I was clever for two seconds."

"No point." Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "You'd have realized eventually."

John spluttered in outrage.

"You're missing the most curious question, John!" Sherlock stood and snapped his magnifier shut and waved a gloved hand at the canine confectionary. "The most curious question is, what has happened to the rest of the cupcakes!"

Lestrade looked confused.

John just sighed, shook his head, and started packing up his minimal field forensic kit. "I suppose you're going to tell us they're all poisoned with a fast-acting, incredibly lethal poison, and that he scuttled his own boat and hung all this tat about the place to watch him eat them and die, and only got the head wound from, from-" John glanced around and noted some blood and hair on a protruding bit of shelf, "-hitting his head on that when he fell down dead."

The silence in the room stopped John's packing up. He looked up to see Sherlock staring at him, much like the dog, and looking rather stuffed. Much like the dog.

"What?" John asked.

Sherlock snapped, "Aside from part of the 'tat' being the genuine Vernet stolen from the Hermitage and replaced by an expert forgery which was only discovered in 1987 but kept quiet so as not to impede investigations, and the fact that the victim didn't place any of these items himself, you're spot on."

"What, really?" John and Lestrade said at much the same time.

Sherlock sniffed, turned and left the tiny fort in a flare of coat, climbing down the ladder to the waiting police boat.

Lestrade barked an incredulous laugh. "I think you took the wind out of his sails, John!"

John just shrugged and finished packing up his kit with a quietly smug smile.

-.-.-  
(that's it)


End file.
